Let's nuke climate change!

@Metal-Brain
You said very difficult. You did not say impossible. With all the recent advances in plasma control it may very well be possible and besides there are several avenues being pursued, like inertial ignition by massive lasers and stellerators and tokomaks and several other technologies examined.
You can't count fusion out till it is proven impossible even given the latest developments in that technology.

For one thing, it will be possible in the future for space propulsion because you are not confined to a safety box, in space it can be a mile long and it is possible there with significant engineering difficulties of course.
The other out there space propulsion that may even be more advanced in theory is anti matter drives. Much more energy per gram of fuel and the control of antimatter is well known, magnetic fields keeping the stuff away from our matter till they meet in the combustion chamber used to heat some propellant to much higher temperatures and velocities and therefore specific impulse much higher than ANY other fueled spacecraft but of course all that is 100 years down the road if civilization LASTS the next 100 years in the ability to do space travel.

@sonhouse said
@Metal-Brain
You said very difficult. You did not say impossible. With all the recent advances in plasma control it may very well be possible and besides there are several avenues being pursued, like inertial ignition by massive lasers and stellerators and tokomaks and several other technologies examined.
You can't count fusion out till it is proven impossible even given t ...[text shortened]... 100 years down the road if civilization LASTS the next 100 years in the ability to do space travel.

You can't count on fusion until it is proven practical.

@metal-brain said
Coal is generally cheaper. Are you claiming the Bloomberg article I posted is false?

Your references did not show that. Your source showed nuclear was cheaper and the Bloomberg one I don't have a subscription to read. Did it really refute the several other articles and reports? What about the Bloomberg article demonstrated that coal was cheaper? How much cheaper? Over what period of time?

@wildgrass
"Your source showed nuclear was cheaper."

Yes, that was before I found out it estimated "externalities" like an optional carbon tax being spun as a necessity. I believe that one claimed natural gas was cheapest and it was not. I explained why.

Coal is generally cheaper worldwide. I'm sure you can find a country that is an exception like Japan, but even they are reconsidering since the last mishap and if you consider the cost of Fukishima cleanup and all of that it may not really be worth it at all for Japan.

I can find a link to prove nearly any of the many sources of electricity to be cheapest, but all of them cannot be right unless it is in a specific region and that is not "generally", that is specifically by region.

I provided you with a link that explained how cost manipulation happens and I do not think you read it at all. You pretended like it didn't exist. I can't help you. You are impossible.

@metal-brain said
@wildgrass
"Your source showed nuclear was cheaper."

Yes, that was before I found out it estimated "externalities" like an optional carbon tax being spun as a necessity. I believe that one claimed natural gas was cheapest and it was not. I explained why.

Coal is generally cheaper worldwide. I'm sure you can find a country that is an exception like Japan, but even t ...[text shortened]... think you read it at all. You pretended like it didn't exist. I can't help you. You are impossible.

Obviously, if you are going to factor in the initial capital investment of the plant you must consider the cost over the full life cycle.

You are right on one point though. I am surprised how many environmentalists and climate change "accepters" are anti-nuclear. Many analyses have shown that investing in nuclear is a clear path towards rapidly lowering carbon emissions, on time scales that climate scientists are asking for. Wind energy isn't going to cut it.

Below, for example, is an analysis demonstrating that if California had made the same $100 billion investment in nuclear instead of wind, they would be 100% clean energy by now. Instead they have gone the other way, and are dirtier than they've ever been.

"Over the last 20 years the share of electricity from clean energy globally has declined because the increase in electricity coming from solar and wind wasn’t enough to offset the decline of nuclear."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already-have-100-clean-power/#55fffb84e0d4

@wildgrass said
Obviously, if you are going to factor in the initial capital investment of the plant you must consider the cost over the full life cycle.

You are right on one point though. I am surprised how many environmentalists and climate change "accepters" are anti-nuclear. Many analyses have shown that investing in nuclear is a clear path towards rapidly lowering carbon emissions, ...[text shortened]... ey-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already-have-100-clean-power/#55fffb84e0d4

If you still want to do research into nuclear power I recommend France since they rely mostly on nuclear for electricity and they are not Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

@Metal-Brain
The elephant in the room is still disposal of waste nuclear fuel.
You can't just say, well, feed it to a breeder reactor, nice if happen to HAVE one.
but it IS the elephant in the room, and more of the dangerous stuff generated every day.
So we are left with FRACKING, or Trumps deal, reactivate Coal, he says it is SO clean.

From the link below:

"DHSG (Downhole Steam Generation) lowers small but mighty steam generation tools (furnaces) deep into the well. DHSG allows for greater heat conservation and improved fuel economy.

Miniature nuclear reactors are ready for commercial application. Toshiba has developed a prototype reactor specifically for heavy oil extraction. This 5 MW electricity generator simultaneously serves as the furnace for a 900 Celsius steam injection boiler. The reactor promises to replace the elaborate and expensive natural gas infrastructure presently required by oil-field steam injection facilities. Toshiba’s prototype needs refueling every 30 years."

https://www.globalresearch.ca/valuing-venezuelas-orinoco-oil-belt/5667266

@sonhouse said
@Metal-Brain
The elephant in the room is still disposal of waste nuclear fuel.
You can't just say, well, feed it to a breeder reactor, nice if happen to HAVE one.
but it IS the elephant in the room, and more of the dangerous stuff generated every day.
So we are left with FRACKING, or Trumps deal, reactivate Coal, he says it is SO clean.

Is that better or worse than carbon waste emitted directly into the atmosphere?

Again, I have not received a satisfactory answer. But if barrels of nuclear waste buried under a mountain is worse than carbon emissions, then I agree with Metal Brain. We might as well stick with coal. I don't understand why we're prematurely decommissioning nuclear plants because windmills seem more green, while the offset they have made on carbon emissions is extremely minimal because we've simultaneously taken zero emissions nuclear offline.

If nuclear waste is better, then we should be supporting that technology. As a means towards reducing carbon emissions, its faster, cheaper and more effective (online all the time) than solar or wind. Of course worth mentioning that wind and solar is going to cost a lot of money, produce tons of waste, and take up millions of acres of land as well.

Here's another piece of reading material from MIT regarding the enormous potential for nuclear power to sharply lower carbon emissions for those interested:

http://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Future-of-Nuclear-Energy-in-a-Carbon-Constrained-World.pdf

@wildgrass said
Is that better or worse than carbon waste emitted directly into the atmosphere?

Again, I have not received a satisfactory answer. But if barrels of nuclear waste buried under a mountain is worse than carbon emissions, then I agree with Metal Brain. We might as well stick with coal. I don't understand why we're prematurely decommissioning nuclear plants because windmills ...[text shortened]... gy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Future-of-Nuclear-Energy-in-a-Carbon-Constrained-World.pdf

Helen Caldicott warns that the dangers associated with Fukushima have not gone away and remain a cause for concern.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-an-ongoing-global-radiological-catastrophe-a-huge-coverup-dr-helen-caldicott/5672265

@metal-brain said
Helen Caldicott warns that the dangers associated with Fukushima have not gone away and remain a cause for concern.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-an-ongoing-global-radiological-catastrophe-a-huge-coverup-dr-helen-caldicott/5672265

The human costs of dealing with one of these every 30 years is vastly outweighed by the cost of carbon emissions The costs are also outweighed by the land use and production costs of solar/wind.

Wind and solar are not greener than nuclear. That is also a fact.

@wildgrass said
The human costs of dealing with one of these every 30 years is vastly outweighed by the cost of carbon emissions The costs are also outweighed by the land use and production costs of solar/wind.

Wind and solar are not greener than nuclear. That is also a fact.

The human cost of one meltdown lasts far longer than 30 years. I suggest you read Helen's statements and try to prove them wrong. You are hopelessly biased and don't want to be confused with facts.

@metal-brain said
The human cost of one meltdown lasts far longer than 30 years. I suggest you read Helen's statements and try to prove them wrong. You are hopelessly biased and don't want to be confused with facts.

Regardless of alternates to fossil fuel, we need SOMETHING. Wave, Geothermal, nuke, solar, wind, we need SOME combination of all of the above to stop us sucking on the tit of oil. We need to use oil for what we really need, lube for our machines. A much better use of oils.

@sonhouse said
Regardless of alternates to fossil fuel, we need SOMETHING. Wave, Geothermal, nuke, solar, wind, we need SOME combination of all of the above to stop us sucking on the tit of oil. We need to use oil for what we really need, lube for our machines. A much better use of oils.

Nuclear should not be one of them. I'm fine with continuing the operation of existing plants, just not building new plants except in rare cases that justify it.

@metal-brain said
The human cost of one meltdown lasts far longer than 30 years. I suggest you read Helen's statements and try to prove them wrong. You are hopelessly biased and don't want to be confused with facts.

Regardless, the costs associated with other energy sources are not lower. You can say "nuclear is bad" all you want, but we need to get power from somewhere and coal is ruining the entire world, not just Japan.

I read Helen's statements. It's more history than policy. Of course we know that reactor was quite old and built poorly without the proper regulatory oversight. To me that's an argument supporting modern safer, more efficient nuclear plants that won't melt down the same way.

She thinks there is a huge cover up and we don't know how many people get cancer from nuclear radiation and it's probably more than we think but we don't know. Cool. But Japan isn't building new nuclear plants anyways. So what's the point of the cover up? Makes no sense.